A Good Reason to hate the French (government)

No, not the Rugby, the colonialism. Johann Hari visits the Central African Republic and finds French imperialism alive and well in a country that few have ever heard of.

Here's the first paragraph:

For forty years, the French government has been fighting a secret war in the dead-centre of Africa, hidden not only from the French people and parliament, but from the world. It has led the French to slaughter democrats, install dictator after dictator - and even to fund and fuel the most vicious genocide since the Nazis. Today, this war is so vicious that thousands are even fleeing across the border from the Central African Republic into Darfur - seeking sanctuary on the world's most notorious killing fields. I first heard whispers of this war in March, when a few scattered newspapers across the world reported in passing that the French military was bombing the remote city of Birao, in the far North of the Central African Republic. Why were French soldiers fighting there, thousands of miles from home? Why had they been intervening in central Africa this way for so many decades? I could find no answers out here - so I decided to travel there, into the belly of France's forgotten war.

Forget the footie, read the rest.